Sonnets, workshopping and all that jazz

First up Narayani has sent info on the Poetry Society and Cafe (www.poetrysociety.org) and there some rather fabulous looking events, readings, workshops etc- I might even go wild and leave the wilds of suffolk for a few hours to attend a couple!
I apologise for being so lethargic in writing this blog for the last few weeks- the pressure of time and tiredness have been the victors.
So.... how are we all getting on with the sonnets? I am really struggling to understand the tensions between the formality of the form and the fluidity of how it "reads". Sonnets are so musical and when I read Keats or Wilfred Owen or any of them, they read so musically and naturally, they are very organic in how they flow and yet, and YET they are so structured and meticulous?! how do we do that? and get that balance? So far every attempt I have made just sounds laboured and artificial. Everything I write seems to scream : i'm a sonnett!!! when is should just read easily and beautifully. Some of it has to do with my lack of familiarity with hard rhyming couplets. I worry that no matter what I try and write it will sounds like one of those hideous hall mark wedding card poems (my love is like a red red rose, the more i know you the more is grows etc) or like something we had to memorise as children. Reading more modern sonnets from the 101 Sonnets book and online has really helped. I am still determined to write a formal structured sonnet properly before i write a loser more unshackled on. So far... not looking good.
The other part of the problem for me is that I have a complete mental block that a sonnet is something someone like me writes. Sonnets are what Shakespeare wrote. Shakespeare. So already the bar is set impossibly high and secondly it seems ostentatiously ambitious, arrogant even, to think I could even try. I am sure I wont have a sonnet ready to present in class. I feel this is going to be a slow burning project- but when I do finally have one i will present it here - triumphantly!
On to the workshops. Firstly thank you so everyone who took the time to read my poems. I appreciate it hugely as it does take time to read through someone else's work and come up with thoughtful responses. I took on board all your thoughts and your encouragement has also spurred me on to continue the Animal Cycle - I like to think of the as little messages from the animals, little fables translated from them into our language. For the sonnet exercise I am continuing the theme, possibly with a bumble bee or a falcon - I am working one both and we will see which one resolves itself best.
This week I am in the position of offering critque on other classmates work- Liz and Easlyn. I think it is such a powerful position and thus one which should be used with great trepidation. Because as novices we write so much from our own experience we are actually offering up a piece of ourself for critique. Perhaps this is why what is said without rancour of unkindness can be perceived by another as aggressive/ dismissive etc I can't remember where I read heard it, but i think the expression applies to our workshops: "tread carefully, you are stepping on my dreams". I love that, and think its nice to remember. Having said that- if we want to be mediocre writers we can simply ignore all criticism but if we want to be great writers (and here's a confession: i DO want to be a great writer, i'm not just doing this to pass time) then we need to take it all on board and take stock. After all we write for other people to read the work and if the readers are reflecting back to us that they don't get it/ don't feel it etc then we need to acknowledge that.
Hope you have all caught up on Anthony's performance on Jools Holland? it really made me think about creativity and how we can never be good let alone great writers if we restrict our creatives selves to a couple of hours a week or just between the covers of our note books. Rather our creativity needs to be authentic to our entire way of being. Anthony expresses his creativity in every way possible, words, music, visually etc. If we want to be writers we need to absorb art, music, literature, film, tv- everything! to feed our creative selves.
Hmm im rambling again.... too much time talking to animals does that to you, but at least I get some poems out of it occasionally ;)